The University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit Hacking

“So, caution, friends. Try to remain calm.” Calm? This fraudd has been foisted upon America and you say be calm?

Up Yours! Be calm while you read thru the e-mail treasure trove and see with your own eyes that the skeptics we’re 100 % correct.

Be still my beating heart, be still.

The IPCC was founded by a couple of leftists and the proof of their fraud is barreling down the pike so you might want to step quickly aside.

Obama sent his regards to Copenhagen because he doesn’t want to be anywhere near this fraud when it explodes.

Better sell your warming credits fast, these days are getting colder, not warmer!

Sorry, should have tried harder to remain calm.

If you, the author are in any way offended, I apologize.

That said, maybe you might have written a different article? Maybe one about the pressing need to pass Obama’s Global Poverty Act!

Maybe your next article should be advising Americans to relax and take a deep breath while Obama passes another transfer of wealth bill disguised as Health Care Reform!

I’ll relax when I’ve seen the long form birth certificate, not till then.

You wouldn’t like it if I came to your house and stole your savings so don’t expect readers to relax because you think there might be a plausible explanation for the criminal enterprise otherwise known as the democrat party.

Old Man- chill out!

I’ve read a handful of these e-mails and what really bothers me about them is how concerned the scientists are over public relations. I’m also bugged that they have such close ties to activists. You can tell that anthropogenic global warmers have made up their minds and all that matters is how the message is communicated.

Half cocked? Isn’t this youtube?

I agree with Matt. Nobody should be that surprised at these emails. They largely serve to justify pre-existing skepticism. The bad manners of many of the key players are already well known. As Matt suggests, I would be cautious about reproducing the content. Just being involved in a lawsuit is very, very painful – even when you are totally innocent.

I suspect one good thing will come out of this. It is hard for me to imagine that the editors of the next IPCC TAR will be members of the hockey stick team.

“Stay Calm”? I think that Briggs is mostly talking to himself here, aren’t you? You surely had to take some tranquilizer shot while you were reading it, constantly aware of any “YEESS!!” shouting moment, too awkward for colleagues around your office to understand. Yes, images of Dr Strangelove come to mind.

As a matter of fact, all these e-mails and data that I happened to read yesterday with great humor are only that: pieces of entertainment. They can’t be used in any other way possible, unless criminal action is taken against certain … ahh.. scientists who seemed to elaborate a “delete evidence and trails” on a certain moment (a FOIA moment) in the past. There’s enough material there that, if investigated properly and confirmed, could leave certain people in shambles.

It’s a big IF, though, and I wouldn’t bet on it. The major consequence of this issue is that we now saw them naked with their pants off, and they are blushing terribly. How will they react? Interesting question, answers may depend upon the personalities and how coordinated they will be. Surely they are taking this thing seriously.

Nope, this isn’t the time of “reckoning”. Not yet. As the brits say, “wait and see”.

Phil Jones says the files are real: http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/11/hadleycru-says-leaked-data-is-real.html. He also says, “It was hacker”. I don’t have the files myself but someone has observered that the emails are a selection over 10 years (is that true?). So someone made a selection over some period of time. I can’t see a hacker doing that. Maybe the hacker found the zip file. But what was the intent of the person who compiled it?

“Hacker” is susceptible of many interpretations but in this context it seems clear to me it means an outsider. I find that hard to believe.

Why was Phil Jones so quick to say they were real?

Rich – I can think of several reasons why Phil Jones would be so quick to admit they were real:

1. Damage control – put the focus on those who illegally aquired the files.

2. Arrogance – they already think they’ve won the debate, and don’t care what anyone outside the team believes.

3. Shamelessness – as True Believers, they aren’t ashamed of their tactics, because their adversaries are evil.

4. They’ve Moved On – an old Team meme that they can ignore the past and create new news with new sensationalism.

But we’ll see how many journalists write the story they should here — corruption. I vote for John Stossel.

Phil Jones admits he has written what he actually did? Of course not. He states that they still have to see what has been leaked. If he did it, he had to say goodbye to his tenure, pronto.

He does admit, look here:

TGIF asked Jones about the controversial email discussing “hiding the decline”, and Jones explained what he was trying to say….

“Explained”? Already on this stage?

“Oh please dear, it’s not what it looks like, look I can explain….”

Oh boy oh boy. This is better than soap opera! 😀

“…they can be convinced of mistakes where they exist.”

I don’t share your confidence on this point (are you familiar with the Tiljander sediment saga?), but I agree with the broader recommendations. At this point the discussion amounts to gossip – “Did you hear what K said to M? OMG!” I don’t think it’s very helpful.

Is there a smoking gun in there? Something like “Dear K, thanks for altering that data before sending it to me so that I could get the hockey stick we needed without running the risk of being charged with academic fraud. You’re much better positioned to do this kind of thing than I am, because no one is looking at you. Go TEAM! – M”

Doubtful, and really beside the point – unless your main concern is a vendetta against these people rather than the scientific, statistical, political, and economic ramifications of their work.

I hope people remember that these folks are people, that no group’s members are all equally reprehensible, and that treating people and their reputations as pawns in a political game is no less disgusting when they do it than when professional politicians do it.

What strikes me about the selections published so far is that their tone is much what I’ve experienced of (some) scientists speaking in private, before they go all po-faced and make Terribly Proper public pronouncements about the wonders of Science. I remember a strong complaint of Ruelle about the collapse of moral standards when physicists invaded a field that was previously the bailiwick of mathematicians.

There is no conspiracy, as far as I can tell. … If, as a skeptic, you try to club the email originators over the head with conspiracy, they have the easiest defense: they believe. And people will see that they believe, that there is no conspiracy, and you will look like a brute and an ass. Meanwhile, what should really be at question—will it get hotter, colder, or can we know with sufficient precision—will be left unanswered.

VERY GOOD ADVICE!

A problem with this situation — of which the hacking & disclosure is but a part — is that the group that “believes” & has persisted in alarmist rhetoric has done so via some questionable tactics — including the suppression of data (e.g. Briggs & the Yamal tree data, etc. as revealed by S. ‘McIntyre’ at Climate Audit, etc.). This hacking may well have been motivated by the recent removal of data from the public and the longstanding refusal to disclose the core data from which so many models extrapolate to dangerous warming.

Bad science practice has been part & parcel of the global warming alarmist playbook.

So to some extent, they’ve asked for it.

And maybe that’s not so bad; to paraphrase Jefferson, every so often a revolution may be a good thing.

As for their beliefs — that’s hardly an excuse. In fact, THAT is NOT an excuse.

To apply that logic to another situation (aka that described in this blog regarding “Fads and Fallacies in the Social Sciences,” by Steven Goldberg (ref at: https://www.wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=902, etc.) ) if we applied “belief” to legal gun possession that resulted in the shooting of someone because the shooter thought (“believed”) they were in mortal danger interesting findings–legal findings–result. Basically, fear of bodily harm is not a defense–the threat must be real.

Just an anology of using “belief.”

With so much psychological energy devoted to a project & conclusion, these players have tremendous investments in the alarmist outcome. On top of that are their reputations. In such circumstances people don’t generally change no matter how much the facts say they’re wrong. Its human nature (similar behaviors are observed in individuals that buy a stock that drops in price–many won’t sell to cut losses hoping for a recovery because its easier than admitting they invested badly; ditto for those seniors that get duped in a high pressure scam that induces them to deplete thier savings for greater riches–a sizeable percentage won’t report the crime to the police, and hopefully recover their losses, out of embarressment).

For those of us that understand psychology in some depth, this sort of psychological dynamic is blatantly apparent with at least some of the “big names” in the GW Alarmist camp — like sarcasm, its just “dripping” in their writings. These people have clearly deceived themselves.

The signs & pattern is both very clear very similar to that observed with people drawn into cults (reference “Combatting Cult Mind Control” by Hassan for that).

And for all practical purposes, the net effect isn’t really distinguishable from a conspiracy.

Considering that the US is poised on the brink of setting itself up for an economic disaster in the name of solving what’s almost certainly a nonexistant problem, a little, or not-so-little, hacking & disclosure may be a good thing … a small revolution in a significant policy area entirely consistent with Jefferson’s wisdom.

And if anybody thinks such things are “bad” keep in mind the US was founded on treason & revolution — and as far as freedom goes, its the best thing the world’s seen.

Is there a smoking gun in there?

I believe there is, with Phil Jones calling for destruction of papers concerning FOIA request. It’s insanely good.

Hi –

If you are looking for the connection to propaganda (woops, public relations rules), then you need to search for “The Rules of the Game”.

I posted it here with relatively few snarky comments. It’s really rather basic marketing-for-mba type of info.

http://21stcenturyschizoidman.blogspot.com/2009/11/rules-of-game.html

The people involved are from futerra (“future terra”, future of the earth) and the folks behind it are UK environmental agency (charmingly called “Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs”, can you get advice there on how best to woo that farm girl?).

At the futerra site, there’s also a “New Rules: New Game” PDF with an update that I haven’t gotten to.

What this breach of security really points to is the failure of control mechanisms to ensure complete and total honesty. Many greens try to prevent criticism by insisting that they don’t want to mix politics and science: we now see that the evidence has been compromised, at best (if not outright falsified) by exactly that mixture of science and politics that those involved have claimed not to have done.

Or, in other words, they’ve been caught lying.

You know, if they had been thinking this through properly, they’d have falsified the data from the very beginning and brought in statisticians from outside to verify the results. That’d have been virtually impossible to identify, but given the fact that they didn’t control the original data, this wasn’t an option…hence I don’t think this really qualifies as a diabolic conspiracy, merely a massive cock-up.

And as we should know from Nixon’s follies, it’s the cover-up that always gets them in the end…

I think it’s more interesting to look at some of the apparent misconduct and even potentially criminal behavior. There are several of the emails that discuss deleting emails after being notified of FOAI requests, about ways to avoid sending data to McIntyre, and about an attempt to get a lot of the Big Names to pressure journals to stop accepting papers from Pielke Sr.

I’m sure they believe in their basic idea, and I’m not surprised that they would worry about our recent very cold October (“where is the global warming?”). That’s normal.

It’s interesting to consider if this data dump is *all* the files that were stolen….

Charlie (Colorado):

Good to see you around.

Caution? We don’t need no stinking caution.

A Google search using ” ‘phil jones’ climate hacked” showed that plenty of people are making mountains out of molehills with some of the emails. Take a look at the emphasis added emails in Tony Hake’s story at examiner.com. Without knowing the subject or context of the discussion the meaning isn’t always clear, so the emphasis is just an attempt to influence the reader toward a point of view. It’s no great revelation that they don’t think much of people skeptical of their viewpoint and don’t want to do anything that might help the skeptics.

I especially like this line in the last paragraph “If the emails and documents are a forgery, it would be an extremely large one that would likely have taken months to setup. ” Why’s he posting them and adding emphasis if he doesn’t even know if they are real? Is he trying to say what an impressive a forgery this would be?

They said so nice words when they dropped their bomb shell here: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/open-letter/

We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it. This is a limited time offer, download now: (The URL from Russia – http://ftp.tomcity.ru – no longer works) ,

and will never be awarded.

The guys at Real Climate have just responded. I think it is a well crafted response – carefully avoiding the real FOIA minefield. It also reads as if it was written with “the Rules of the Game” in mind and/or by Fenton Communications, the backers and enablers of the RealClimate site.

Looks right up your alley

Comments in ipcc-tar-master.rtf pages 2,3 and 4

The statistical treatment of data, and of model simulation is inadequate throughout the Report

I would like to suggest that the whole Report is checked over by a specialist in the statistical treatment of data and of correlation procedures with a view to more scientific and uniform treatment of data, and the overall provision of the standard quantitative measures of correlation and accuracy.

Vincent Gray, Climate Consultant, New Zealand, (Exp.)

As to the famous leak or hack all I can say is that what was already becoming a farce has so far surpassed itself that it bids fair to beome a tragedy for science as well. How it will all turn out only time will tell.

But as to these complex models most physicists and mathematicians I have talked to over the years take a mechanistic view such as the inevitable growth in errors with repeated iteration. Certainly, for all the computing power even quite simple ones tend to dissolve in a puddle fairly quickly in terms of the time over which they are supposed to predict, by slamming over to their limits one way or the other. Unless of course they are either constrained so as to prevent this, which is a bit like saying to the model thou shalt only produce a result within such a range previously selected: or by only taking the odd one out of many thousands of runs which survives long enough in terms of the time over which it is supposed to predict are used.

Neither approach seems to me particularly enlightening. Nor does the mechanistic view of uncertainty building up the model, not that it is wrong, I just don’t think it is very helpful.

It seems to me a better way is to look at the models in terms of the second law of thermodynamics as apllied to information theory.

But hey what do I know? I am such an old fashioned physicist as to have serious doubts that string is a very good way of holding the Universe together. Me I prefer glue.

But what I don’t doubt is that these complex models are useless, and that more computer power and putting in more assumptions will do nothing to improve their predictive power. Which is no better than random chance.

Must get my Tarot cards out. Very reasonable fees and special discounts for governments and their agencies.

Kindest Regards

Matt:
It doesn’t look like Roger Pielke Snr is going to take this one lying down! http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/

Dr Pielke Snr seems a bit upset. Jones, Mann et al sophmoric name-calling is one thing, but the manipulating of the peer review process could translate into an ethics and professional misconduct beef.

Fox has the story now.

I was puzzled by the second sentence in FOIA’s preface on “the Air Vent”.

“We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents.”

Huh, random as in not selected, or not cherry-picked? ( And by the way, funny how RC as usual, thinks attack is the best defence: “a presumably careful selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence”
Anyway, I think these guys have an unhealthy obsession with PR and with bogeyman Steve. And steering off a FOIA request by befriending the officers involved hopefully will have consequences, also consequences for the CRU I hope. And although sharp disagreements can be observed in the emails, I still have a strong sense of a small group playing together. And the power politics involved in the peer review and other interferences by this smug little group also leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

What I learn from this material I can learn from just reading the posts at RealClimate. This team consists of a combination of boors and scientific pettifoggers. If you set aside (at least temporarily) the verbal shorthand of collegial exchange which may to some signal malfeasence, and just look at the tone, they basically think that the general population is simply too stupid (regarded as unintelligent: regarded as showing a lack of intelligence, perception, or common sense) to understand the message. Therefore, it is ok to adopt strategems to encourage the populace behave as if they did understand. It is their dedication to these strategies rather than to clear and convincing argumentation which I find offensive.

Let’s hope that the critical reaction is deeply and thoughtfully critical rather than shallow and emotional. We will want to have real “science” left standing when this movement ends up wherever it deserves to.

The sad thing is (assuming these emails and documents are genuine) that these scientists feel compelled to invent ways to spin the data one way or another. If “the science is settled,” there should be no need to present anything but the raw and real data. That is the way to show confidence in your theory. We need real science to confirm or confound the theory, not the whims of politics.

This could well leave the climate-change industry in tatters. Where would the tax come from in future, what about the thermal insulation and windmill industries and what will Al do next? I suppose “candy-floss economics” won’t tide us over until the West re-establishes its manufacturing industry

Sir,

You wrote, “There is no conspiracy, as far as I can tell. A conspiracy would obtain if the participants knew their stated beliefs were false, yet the still espoused them with the goal of winning either money, or power, or control, or whatever. My early, and admittedly incomplete, judgment is that all of these people really are convinced that catastrophic warming is on the way and that it will be caused by mankind. Further, they believe it fervently.”

If thieves get together to plan a robbery, it is likely that they fervently believe that the money they are after, should belong to them. However, it is also likely that they are aware that this view is false. The police will rightly prosecute for “conspiracy to rob” in some situations and as we know, Prof Jones has had the benefit of very large grants of money.

Whether he fervently believes in catastrophic warming or not, is not the issue. I am inclined to the view that the evidence in the emails indicates a lack of moral fibre. The lure of easy money caused an error of judgment, in that, when the observations did not match the models, it seemed a good idea to manipulate the observed data rather than question the models.

You may not agree with my assessment, but these are early days. Time will tell.

Respectfully,

Perry Debell

William,

My initial response was similar to yours. My natural skepticism prevented me form assuming that all, or even any of the material was genuine. In addition I have tried to keep “confirmation bias” under control.

But there has yet been no denial by any of the putative authors that any of the comments or communications attributed to them are forged.

Moreover, unlike you, an extended reading of the material and the responses by many in the “climate science community” has left my jaw increasingly close to the floor.

Were I a member of an oversight committee or somesuch, I would be seriously considering the need to suspend grant funding to a number of these “academics” subject to a full inquiry.

ALos,

Some people have stated there is no “Conspiracy” (note the capital). It is beyond dispute however, that the communications between authors is conspiratorial (a covert coordination of behaviour or action to achieve a common goal)

I’ve been looking at these files. The idea that they are a random selection is absurd. (and I don’t mean in the Popperian sense). Given all the froth and fuss about “peer reviewed publication” this is amusing:

“Plus there is the additional uncertainty, discussed on the final page of the supplementary
information, associated with linking the proxy records to real temperatures (remember we
have no formal calibration, we’re just counting proxies — I’m still amazed that Science
agreed to publish something where the main analysis only involves counting from 1 to 14!
:-)).”

1254345329.txt

Well selected files, as I can see, by a well informed hacker …. And the question behind is : what else ?

Manipulation of data.

Hiding data.

Deleting data.

Breaking freedom of information act laws.

Taking millions of dollars from taxpayers and engaging in scientific misconduct.

Be calm.

“Try not to use the word ‘conspiracy’ too readily. It is an extremely strong word—and it is beside the point. Or should be.”

Conspiracy to do what? Conspiracy to dupe the public about the existence of CAGW? Probably not.

But what about a conspiracy to obstruct freedom of information requests? To pressure a scholarly journal to stop accepting skeptical articles?

Excellent caveats.

Everyone (skeptics, luke warmers and believers) should pause and treat the material with the care and circumspection that Jones, Mann et al appear to have abandoned long ago.

Science will win out.

Those emails will not be referenced when teaching kids the scientific method. But they don’t invalidate the physics that make CO2 a greenhouse gas.

It would be nice if everyone saw this as a catalyst to treat each other more fairly and entertain the other point of view rather than resort to “dirty pool” much as these people did.

Their reputations are irreparably damaged. No need for everyone to follow them down that rat hole.

Sorry, Dr. Briggs, but I must respectfully disagree. The attendees to the Wallensee Conference believed in what they were doing, too, but it was a conspiracy of monstrous proportions and monstrous results. The term “banality of evil” comes to mind. These e-mails and other documents illustrate a concerted effort to: evade the law; evade fiscal oversight; undermine the peer-review process; supply selective, equivocal information to the public and to decision-makers; use their speiclaized talents and public funding to advance a political agenda. “Conspiracy” is not too strong a word. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to put all of this into context… and I’d suggest that a Congressional Inquiry is just the place to do it….

avoiding, of course, questions like “….Professor, are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the IPCC review panel? Are any of your friends, relatives, colleagues or acquaintances currently members….”

Mr Briggs

You said

“Interesting, too, some of the documents which advise how to create propaganda. I’m going to hunt around to see if these are publicly available.

I wrote an article on the politics of climate change.

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/crossing-the-rubicon-an-advert-to-change-hearts-and-minds/#comments

Look at link 4 onwards-‘the rules of the game.’ Science was left behind long ago, not only is it a conspiracy to ‘change behaviour’ and create a ‘one world’ socialist state, but they have minuted their intentions in such places as the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons. Hadley/Cru have had £143 million pounds from the UK Govt since 1993 to further global warming research and are prime contributors to the IPCC-yet the data is considered a state secret.

John Opie also referred to the ‘rules of the game’ earlier in this thread but the complete article I have linked to (with the updated rules) puts them into their proper context. It goes way beyond ‘basic marketing’. As can be seen it was used to ensure that the BBC, amongst others, were ‘on message.’

Tony Brown

“My early, and admittedly incomplete, judgment is that all of these people really are convinced that catastrophic warming is on the way and that it will be caused by mankind. Further, they believe it fervently.”

With respect Sir, I don’t think so.

From: Tom Wigley

To: Kevin Trenberth

Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:09:35 -0600

Cc: Michael Mann , Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer

Kevin, I didn’t mean to offend you. But what you said was ”we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment”. Now you say “we are no where close to knowing where energy is going”. In my eyes these are two different things—the second relates to our level of understanding, and I agree that this is still lacking.

Tom

Kevin Trenberth wrote:

Hi Tom

How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!

Kevin

It doesn’t matter one whit if they all believe in AGW. if they planned to commit a crime and did one part of it (like deleting a email wanted under a FOIA request), it is a conspiracy.

U.S. Code TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 19 > § 371

§ 371. Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor.

Mr Briggs: You stated that the e-mail files were obtained by hacking. That is speculation. Another equally plausible alternative is that someone with a conscience in HadCRU leaked the data in a manner that it appeared to have been hacked.

Regardless if whether or not the data was obtained illegally is not relevant. Once the data files are determined to be genuine, an investigation into the substantive issues of scientific fraud, academic fraud, conspiracy to defraud, etc can commence.

Even if the data was released illegally, it can be used in civil and criminal investigations. However, the hacker may have committed a crime.

Bill, you’re missing the point of the email, I think. The issue is not “how much did the scientists manipulate their data/ research” — it’s clear they did to some extent, which may or may not be relevant to how one assesses the implications of their research…

The issue is conspiracy to evade FOI requests by explicitly requesting destruction of documents that are clearly covered by that law in the UK and the US.

The issue is explicit efforts to politically manipulate peer review to exclude research they disagree with (think is faulty).

The issue is admitting to each other in private that certain research (e.g., Briffa) is clearly flawed, but in public supporting it, or at least not pointing out its flaws.

I could go on, but, Bill, you really must step back and look at what these emails say. Forget about the “trick” things and “adjust” by 0.15C things, they may or may not be significant (although they may be — I’ll await tose who understand the details of the data better than I).

The issue is the obvious subversion of any sensible scientific process and, more importantly, their clear efforts to push a political agenda with HUGE national and global consequences. THAT is the issue, Bill. Be a citizen, for heaven’s sake!

I just read the Nov. 20 response at Real Climate which I paraphrase: Scientists are asses, and as revealed by these emails, we are a particularly petty, small-minded, obstructionist bunch, but out science is great.

“But attempts to point out bias should be formed with compassion and not passion. This is not the time to settle scores, but to gain allies. We are dealing with a group of highly intelligent people and they can be convinced of mistakes where they exist.”

Totally agree.

“…But attempts to point out bias should be formed with compassion and not passion. This is not the time to settle scores, but to gain allies. We are dealing with a group of highly intelligent people and they can be convinced of mistakes where they exist…”

Do you remember Sir Fred Hoyle and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar? Fred Hoyle was one of the foremost cosmologists of his generation – an intelligent person if ever there was one. And yet he spent the entire second half of his life trying to patch up his discredited ‘constant creation’ theory, which had been disproven time and time again.

Intelligent people can easily be just as wrong as stupid people. It’s just that they’re wrong at a more complex level…

One must always take some of this stuff with a grain of salt, however I seem to remember a newspaper in the states publishing what were popularly known as “The Pentagon Papers”. Illegally obtained? Most probably. Revealing of a process that needed examination. Most likely. At this point in time, it is probably appropriate to launch an investigation into what really did happen at the CRU and impound all backup tapes and make destruction of files a crime of obstruction of justice. If there is nothing there, then that should be revealed. If there is (and I personally think that there is) then some of the scientists involved should be peddling Fuller brushes door to door for the balance of their life. The post by Dodgy Geezer talks about Hoyle. Hoyle would not let go of his theory, but he was honest enough to try and make it work through various means, all of them within the scientific method and done honestly. The fact that none of them worked is to his credit. The most important aspect of science is to prove an existing hypothesis fails someplace. That is the role of the real scientist. Theory first, data later is the act of a charlatan.

Briggs 20 nov 11:55am.
..’It has the feel of somebody doing a quick hit and run….’

William, you have highlighted yet another area in which my skills are sadly lacking.
I have searched myself thoroughly and found no such ‘feel’.
I ask for your help in order to rectify this rather appalling gap in my development.
Please advise what activities you undertook as a young lad to develop this ‘feel’.

“The hacking was undoubtedly illegal, as may be the reproduction of this private correspondence publicly. So again, caution, friends. Don’t get cocky.”

The release of the Pentagon Papers was illegal too. And yet, the Left hails it to this day as a seminal moment in US history. Now, all of a sudden, the Left has a problem with illegally leaked information about misconduct on the part of powerful people. Not to mention the fact that opposition to the government was the ultimate expression of patriotism up until the election of Mr. Obama. Now it’s racist, to oppose the government. The Left needs to get it’s act together and figure out what is most important: politics or the truth.

I tend to believe that these “scientists” fudged on the data given that the main argument for AGW has been “we’ve ALL decided that man is to blame here so anyone who says anything different we will denounce as a moron, idiot, racist, homophobe, etc.” Like the release of the IPCC report; they released the results summary first so it could be used by pro-AGW politicians and activists as proof that man is to blame for global warming. The report itself, however, with all of the data and methods of how the data was obtained, wasn’t released for review until months later. Conclusions first, reviewable data dead last. And, let anyone point out this scientific ethical lapse and you are a “denier” on par with those who deny the Holocaust. That is the level of honesty in this debate on the part of AGW supporters. There is very little actual science in it. So, its not a large leap of logic to believe that such people would actually doctor up their data to fit their preconceived conclusions.

I’ve no doubt they are ‘true believers’ in global warming and it may not have been a conspiracy to lie about it or manufacture results.
But it sure looks like they conspired to downplay the uncertainty they knew was contained in their work and to marginalize any scientist with any sort of dissenting viewpoint.
And the overall impression is that they were driven by ideology and politics rather than science.

Calm? Remain calm?????

What a party pooper!!! Let us instead dance around the fire while twisting the knife.

Note to Krugman [https://www.wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=727]: who pray tell are apparently guilty of unforgivable treasonous betrayal of the planet now?

William,
I agree that a certain amount of caution is in order. Sometimes it was difficult for me to understand what the authors of the Hadley CRU emails were trying to say. However the part about hiding the decline–with respect to the dendroclimatolgy divergence problem–did not look good. I do feel comfortable in using the word Climategate. But since forensics is not my bag, I do not view the CRU hack/leak as a Gotcha moment–yet.

If anyone feels let down by all of the cautious talk here, I guest-posted a conversation-stopper to counter the claim of ‘unprecedented’ global warming at the end of the 20th Century at Anthony’s blog last week.
http://tinyurl.com/y9jl8c6

Sorry, no statistics in that article. However even without Climategate, my Seat-of-the-Pants Dendroclimatology trumps all of the premature hockeystick graphs generated by past tree-ring studies.

I’m a bit surprised that readers of this blog would take so much pleasure in the ad hominem opportunities this leak raises. If your goal is denouncement and defamation then I guess there is some ammunition in the leak, but if your goal is truth then the leak doesn’t help much. Just because you think these people’s procedures unscientific, or their lack of openness with data distasteful, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong about CO2 for example, and as WMB said, that should still be the big issue here.

Even with respect to the politics, I don’t see any reason why policies or public opinion would change as a result of this leak. Again, it’s truth rather than method that matters there; method is only important because it can improve people’s confidence in your theory. I’m also not sure why U.S. law is relevant, nor what a Congressional Inquiry would achieve.

For those of us who don’t particularly want to see people’s careers and reputations destroyed, maybe the best that can come out of this is more openness with regard to data and procedures, less censorship of off-message reports, more openness to criticism and hopefully a better scientific process as a result, which should result in more confidence in the truth of whatever theories stand up to more intensive cross-examination, and perhaps a change of theories altogether if that turns out to be warranted. And maybe less political meddling from supposedly scientific bodies, though I wouldn’t hold my breath.

The trouble is, I would have said exactly the same thing a week ago – as others have noted, you only have to pay a bit of attention to RealClimate and ClimateAudit to get some idea that the process is not as open as it should be. So I don’t think this leak has changed my mind – I just hope it might debunk the argument that “secrecy is OK and we can trust these guys” – which seems to come up in one form or another whenever freedom of information is mentioned.

For a topic like this, secrecy is not OK – I don’t mean that private emails should be published, but that scientific papers should be more thoroughly reviewed by hostile reviewers (the word “peer” seems to mean “friend” these days), and the published paper should contain everything needed to duplicate the result, including (links to) source data and working source code, with full details of where the data came from. They also really need to be honest and public about their levels of certainty in their work.

Beyond problems of method, I suppose the other interesting confirmation is that the face presented to politicians and the media is not telling the truth, or at the very least is overconfident about the theories’ provenness. For example, it is refreshing to see acknowledgement from a source of CRU’s calibre that the current climate trend was unpredicted and is hard to explain with existing models. It certainly contrasts with what the media was told a few years ago, and shows that scientific organizations do way too much PR.

“The hacking was undoubtedly illegal, as may be the reproduction of this private correspondence publicly. ”

Not exactly private. The emails were sent to and from email servers belonging to the university and/or government, depending on how the CRU funding is arranged. As far as I can see, none of the emails contain any personal / private information, aside from saying someone was sick and not available to respond to an email. This is hardly an invasion of privacy in normal day to day life.

While I am against hacking activity, the emails certainly indicate a culture of secrecy and selective response to FOI and other data requests. There is also a suspicion of collusion to stack peer review panels and editorial staff of scientific journals. Perhaps this is what motivated the whistleblower / hacker.

What surprises me most is that technically savvy scientists would not realize that their emails are persistent, even after they delete them from their own account. Email servers retain data for several years through company policy / government decree.

Many of the apologists for CRU in the blog world point to the relative paucity of data, spread over several years as an indication that the data supporting a “conspiracy theory” is slight. A counter to this argument is that scientists are just people and only occasionally forgot to maintain proper restraint in their emails. The term conspiracy in itself is designed to belittle its proponents. I prefer cultural maladjustment, wherein those operating within the culture see outsiders as threats, along with a good helping of confirmation bias. Trenberth in his “travesty” email shows there may have been attempts at questioning their models, but it looks like they still went with the flow. This would not be of major concern if this occurred in some minor institution where calm heads might address the problem/disfunction, but the CRU has a central and important role with respect to the IPCC, and has been seen as a clearing house for informing the panel of the science.

What needs to happen is an open enquiry into the hacking incident, because all we have at this stage is the allegation of a hack, and the appearance of confirmed genuine emails sourced from the CRU. The police and the university ethics committee should be compiling very long lists of questions for those involved. The citizens of the UK have right to question how a large amount of their taxes are being spent, and should be pressuring their MP’s to find the answers.

The “scientist” who expressed glee over the death of a skeptical blogger should of course apologise immediately to the family of the departed.

This is one of the calmest, most rational views yet, a pleasure to read. Still, although I do not think there is evidence of a conspiracy, there *is* pretty good evidence of collusion, which in science is just about as bad. With that, they have given up objectivity and they are no longer conducting honest or verifiable science. *All* of their work now needs to be re-worked from the start.

1. You don’t know that it wasn’t a whistleblower.
2. The conspiracy is to block dissent, at the least. Whether there’s other conspiracy remains to be seen.

It’s interesting to see a large number of statements along the “they may be crooks, but global warming is still real and important issue” lines.

This is not about GW. This is about catastrophic lack of scientific integrity and catastrophic abundance of zealotry in the “embedded” scientific community. This issue is more important than global warming: without credible science we are doomed in many ways, far before we get drowned.

And credible science is dissapearing faster than the polar ice. With friendly peers, corporate and government funding, academy cabals, soon the only scientists to trust will be the clandestine ones, that you meet in a dark corner and pay in cash.

Mr. Briggs,

While I understand your “hesitancy” to make any harsh statements, I also find it amazing that you’ve gone out of your way to make certain statements which are not only misleading, but factually false.

First of all, there are at least 3 different issues involved in the allegations of “conspiracy” (not just 1 issue, as you have falsely attempted to claim).

I agree with you that these scientists are likely “true believers” in man-made global warming, and thus I agree that they are not attempting to propagate a hoax which they don’t believe is true (with regard to the theory of man made global warming).

However, there are several other conspiracies which these scientists have knowingly participated in — (unless the emails were fabricated, which doesn’t seem likely since the authors have already validated the genuineness of several of the most damning emails to news outlets).

For example, these scientists knowingly conspired together (via email) to HIDE A DECLINING TEMPERATURE TREND from the public by using “obfuscation” and “omissions” of important scientific data. A conspiracy only needs to include 2 people to qualify as a “conspiracy”, it doesn’t need to include the whole scientific community and it doesn’t need to be “illegal” per se.

How do we arrive at the conclusion (without passion or emotion) that they participated in a nefarious conspiracy?

We know this is true because they talked about using clever “tricks” (clever types of “data manipulation”) which had the EXPLICIT and STATED GOAL of obfuscating a DECLINING TEMPERATURE TREND in scientific reports.

People from the University of East Anglia (CRU) have attempted to downplay the usage of the term “trick” (saying it was taken out of context), by suggesting that it merely indicates “a clever way of doing something” in science. (LOL)

However, any true news reporter (with even a modest IQ) would quickly point out (to their readers) that the term “clever” and “nefarious” are not mutually exclusive. Likewise, a “clever” idea can also be “illegal” or “unethical” too.

In this particular case the INTENT of the email author (and thus the CONTEXT of his message) was shown to be a desire to HIDE A DECLINING TEMPERATURE TREND by using CLEVER DATA MANIPULATION. This is not in dispute, since it’s written in plain English.

Also, in another email his STATED INTENT was to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act by (illegally) asking other people to delete certain emails which they didn’t want the public finding out about via the FOIA. This was stated in plain English, and it cannot be refuted in any logical manner.

I totally agree with the CRU that the author was attempting to be “clever” (when using the term “trick”), just as a bank employee would be “clever” if they found a way to steal money without anybody ever finding out.

Additionally, there was a 3rd issue of conspiracy involved in those emails…

The 3rd conspiracy involves attempting to “prevent” and/or “discourage” PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS from publishing scientific reports which these nefarious scientists didn’t agree with.

These unethical scientists openly discussed ways of using nefarious and underhanded methods (political pressure) on journal editors to encourage them to stop publishing reports for PEER REVIEW.

This is certainly not illegal, but it’s quite unethical for one of the world’s leading scientists to use backroom political pressure to “suppress data” from PEER REVIEW simply because he disagrees with it.

The fact that this was discussed via EMAIL (between 2 people) does make it a conspiracy to suppress scientific data from peer review (using nefarious tactics), regardless of whether it’s legal or not.

…and please keep in mind that these are the world’s TOP SCIENTISTS for climate change who are engaging in these nefarious activities, these are not just “run of the mill” teachers at some local college.

These are the leading climate authorities which the IPCC uses to base some of its findings on.

There are huge dollar amounts which are being influenced by the actions of these rancid scientists with their rotten ethics.

Oh, one final point…

Mr. Briggs, I challenge you to imagine a scenario where George Bush’s Administration (his science advisor) had sent out emails trying to conspire together with climate scientists to encourage them to suppress and/or obfuscate a “declining temperature trend”.

Just imagine if such emails existed and were HACKED AND PUBLISHED on the Internet.

The IPCC (and every other climate group) would publish that story on Page #1 less than five minutes after the story broke, and nobody would assume that George Bush’s team was engaging in “innocent scientific discourse” which was merely “taken out of context”. LOL.

Oh, and what if Sarah Palin was caught trying to delete climate data from public computers which was subject to FOIA disclosure, while admitting this fact (in emails) to other people?

Somehow I don’t think the climate groups would be as “neutral” and “understanding” IF Sarah Palin or George Bush were the people involved, LOL.

Likewise, I don’t think you’re taking these emails too seriously — since you seem to really be downplaying these emails.

Perhaps you have a personal bias. Maybe you view these people as “general colleagues” (fellow academics) who deserve a break from the “intense scrutiny” which you’d normally apply to other people?

If so, shame on you Mr. Briggs. 🙂

Matt:
I have a slightly refined view of this whole situation now that I learned about the timing of the final rejection of Steve McIntyre’s appeal of a UEA ruling on a FOIA request on November 12th!!

Anyone who has worked in a highly competitive environment will not be surprised by many of these emails. The notion that they somehow either prove or disprove a scientific conspiracy as opposed to a very cohesive coalition of like-minded individuals is an over-reach. Many academics are probably all too familiar with the politics and personal animosities associated with article publication in prestigious scientific journals. Dr. Roger Pielke Snr has already written on this point and I suspect that he will be taking further action as a result of the revelations in these emails.
So what is the issue? At core, it is the behavior of key scientists in response to requests to release data. The emails show a pattern of deliberate efforts to undermine the existing legal process for freeing information. The emails are unambiguous as to the efforts of Dr. Jones on this count. Given the title of the file – FOIA, its content and the timing of its release, in close proximity to a rejection of an appeal by Steve McIntyre for releasing data and other information – the odds are that this was not the action of a hacker but of a whistleblower.
If so, Dr Jones and the UEA administration have dug themselves a very deep hole. If the person who released this file was privy to the FOIA discussions and objected to the stonewalling in writing or made contemporaneous notes, then any efforts to pursue them may result in even more damage to the credibility of Dr. Jones et al. It is a genuine Catch-22.
So, folks should try to keep an eye on the pea here. The assertions by advocates for CAGW that skeptics believe that these emails somehow demonstrate a Michael Crichton-like conspiracy is a smokescreen that hides the simpler and more fundamental issue. There is and never has been a real reason for not disclosing the data and the code. The rather juvenile, silly and short-sighted effort to stonewall McIntyre and others has produced the real scandal. The notion that McIntyre and many others are part of some vast conspiracy to delay action on CO2 emissions, besides being neurotic, vastly underestimates the sheer puzzle value of climate issues to those of us used to doing large scale data analysis in other fields. Love him or hate him, nobody has any grounds for doubting McIntyre’s (and a growing number of other “amateurs”) abilities to analyze complex data sets and uncover large and small data and analysis errors.
To my mind it is remarkable that Gavin’s comment at Real Climate, Andrew Revkin’s piece, the pieces in the BBC, the Guardian, NYT, and most of the others I have seen fail to highlight the FOIA issue. I suppose the other stuff has greater voyeuristic value, but it really does miss the whole point of someone posting a file of emails and data title FOIA.

The CRU seem to have learned a lot from MPs, so instead of dealing with the historic fraud in the evidence they are squealing about who leaked the news. There seems to be a trend for Universities producing fraudulent information to get finance, witness the London Metropolitan. Nobody will ever believe a word this Unit says again. I’m sorry for the students who will now always have a question mark over their degrees, given the apparent deception that seem to have been rife in this place.

A. Watts, at his WUWT blog, has a plausible theory that the CRU website was NOT hacked; he infers the possibility that the content of the disclosure was a compilation for Steve “McInteyer’s” (spelling?) FOIA request, and, that this information was zipped into a file that was inadvertently put in a place that was publicly accessible. His speculation, based on general behavioral patterns coupled with the pattern of the content disclosed is at:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/23/the-crutape-letters%c2%ae-an-alternate-explanation/#more-13003

Sorry folks, but the only clear conspiracy here was the conspiracy to suppress dissent. They still refer to us as denialists and they will never stop. However, I have decided to stop referring to them as warmists. Now I will simply call them liars.

Yes, there is a conspiracy to silence dissent, first by trying to prevent the publishing of reports which did not fit with the conspiracists’ viewpoint, and then to shut out or shut down journals which dared after all to print opposing viewpoints. This is not science, this is dirty politics.

Craig

Maybe the truth will now come out about climate change. The worst floods for a thousand years – so there has been more.
The warmest temperature since 19 so & so – again it has been hotter.
Science becomes what the mighty dollar tells us, those who are making the money from cliamte change must perpetuate the myth to justify their existence. lets all get to Copenhagen – but not by car, train, plane – just walk, naked, because all the doomsayers create more emissions in their constant world travels, producing of documentaries and endless rants than the rest of us who accept that the world changes, it lives and you are trying to stop our Mother Nature doing her thing.
Its a bit like our old Russia – you can say what you like but if we (the changers) disagree, we will humiliate and disgrace you.
Freedom has long since gone.

Why on earth didn’t they do a sensitivity analysis, via perturbation, on their results? There seems to be a lot of dividing a snowball by a moonbeam and expressing the result to six significant figures. Pergaps they havn’t heard of ill-conditioned models?

To view the actual University of East Anglia’s Climate Research documents which were discovered on the internet showing various attempts to fool and manipulate the public regarding climate change search for the folder FOI2009.zip it is available on many file sharing sites or view at
http://forkbomb.org/~ml/cmail/

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php

Amusing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk&feature=player_embedded

All sorts of public policies are based on science from, health policy, vaccinations; mercury, fluoride, BGH, genetic modified foods, food irradiation, nuclear power … and these decisions require public trust. No one can know the cumulative affect censorship and deception has had. Scientists who disagreed were marginalized and insulted! This issue perhaps more than others has been spread by teachers and journalists to students and the public. This discussion changed national plans, impacted presidential election, and man’s sense of personal responsibilities to the world. Brilliant business people reviewed the opinions of these scientists and made plans based on misrepresentation. Researchers have hidden the facts that the world was possibly cooling for perhaps the last ten years while CO2 levels rose! How can science find truths if they bully and intimidate dissenters and hide facts? How can the public or businessmen back important public policy decisions? This sort of behavior unfortunately may be all too common. Among senior scientists in every field, this is a black eye. It is too soon too know how this will fall out but it is a reminder of the importance of integrity (not having separate public and private representations of research.)

I also am an applied statistician, and the first thing I would like to see from whatever climate models these climate scientists used is the residual analysis (analysis of the differences between the observed and modeled temperatures) and also tests for significance of the independent variables (especially so-called greenhouse gases). If the model, such as a time series with carbon dioxide and methane as regressor variables, is valid, the residuals will follow a normal distribution (“bell curve”). Of course, since they admitted to throwing away the raw data, I doubt that we will ever see this.

Kimberley Strassel meanwhile published an accusation in the Wall Street Journal, while naming a specific EPA supervisor (and therefore probably legally actionable if false and reckless), to the effect that the EPA suppressed research that does not support Team Obama’s cap and trade agenda. Suppression of findings that do not support a commercial or political agenda meets generally accepted definitions of academic dishonesty and scientific misconduct.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal that says openly that the purpose of cap and trade is to enrich Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase (both of which bundled campaign contributions to elect her and Obama), the Green Exchange, and the New York Stock Exchange. All of them stand to profit from trading or speculation in carbon credits, today’s equivalent of medieval indulgences for sins.

It should now be clear that anthropogenic global warming is junk science, a 21st century Cardiff Giant or Piltdown Man, whose purpose is to enrich special interests at the expense of working Americans who will have to pay even more for energy and whose jobs will be destroyed by higher energy costs. The fact that some of the countries that complain the most loudly about global warming are burning down rain forests (carbon sinks) to clear land for agriculture shows that their concerns extend solely to lip service.

If the global warming alarmists do not like what I just said, they are free to prove me wrong. Let’s see the time series model, including the regressor variables and the raw data. Minitab is pretty good at handling time series models, and I recall using a much older version in night school for my time series class. Let’s put the numbers in and see what comes out in terms of tests for significance and residuals. This assumes, of course, that the CRU didn’t lose the necessary raw data.

In fact, I may even ask the CRU for the model and raw data so I can attempt to reproduce their results, which any engineer or scientist should be able to do if their results are valid.

The emails at East Anglia were not hacked….this is just “spin” which attempts to give a measure of cover to the true criminals here- the scientists involved in massive fraud. The computer technicians at East Anglia have release analysis reports…..the zip file containing the emails was compiled ON a computer AT the university, and was done only moments before the file was released onto the internet……furthermore, the file was released from that computer to MULTIPLE servers……both of these demonstrate that the emails were leaked by an insider blowing the whistle on the fraud…….LEAKED, NOT HACKED.

If the global warming alarmists do not like what I just said, they are free to prove me wrong. Let’s see the time series model, including the regressor variables and the raw data. Minitab is pretty good at handling time series models, and I recall using a much older version in night school for my time series class. Let’s put the numbers in and see what comes out in terms of tests for significance and residuals. This assumes, of course, that the CRU didn’t lose the necessary raw data.